


Seasonal Changes

by Just_Another_Day



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Background Damen/Jokaste, Chastity Device, Collars, Dubious Consent, F/M, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Abortion, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Pegging, Sexual Content, Time Skips, deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-01 19:58:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17873864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: Damen had been so sure that he knew the path his life was bound to take. But a lot could change in a year.





	1. Summer

**Author's Note:**

> This is by no means part of my existing A/B/O series and is a different interpretation of the trope than I used there. So if you've read that, don't expect this to play by the same rules. And don't expect omega Laurent and alpha Damen here either.
> 
> This chapter fills the 'pegging' square of my kink bingo.

When she curled sweetly against his side, very nearly as yielding as one of Damen's slaves would have been if he'd flicked his fingers at them in a subtle invitation to join him, Damen immediately asked, "What do you want, Jokaste?"

"Must I want something? Other than you, of course." Her tone was mostly teasing, but it was undeniably edged with something else. Damen couldn't quite name it. She tilted her head back to look up at him. She never did that usually. It was too much like baring her neck. And while Jokaste was many things – most of them expressed in the same breath, even when they were contradictory in nature – 'naturally submissive' wasn't one of those things. She was every inch the typical alpha woman and made sure that everyone around her was well aware of it. She wouldn't cede to an omega in such an obvious physical way, even when the omega in question was her Prince, unless it served some specific purpose. 

Damen did appreciate that about her, for it was just one of the ways that she was unique among the women of Damen's acquaintance, and Damen had always liked things that were different. But the fact that he liked it didn't mean he would just allow it to pass unremarked-upon.

"I hear that preparations are being made for your seclusion. I thought we might discuss your intentions," Jokaste said. 

Ah. Of course that was what it was about. It was a discussion that Damen had been half-expecting Jokaste to bring up for months now, but not one that Damen himself particularly wanted to have now. Or ever.

"My intentions are the same as they always are." It was said firmly enough that hopefully Jokaste would decide she required no further explanation or justification.

"It would be more enjoyable with an alpha." 'With me' was what she really meant.

It was possible that she was right about that, he supposed. Damen admittedly didn't have the personal experience to say for sure either way. But Damen still found himself doubting the truth of it. A fake cock could remain hard inside him much the same way an alpha would after knotting, but then Damen didn't have to wait around for it to get hard again when he was ready for another round the way he would have to with an alpha. So with the exception of the absence of an alpha's scent, Damen honestly didn't think he was missing anything. And even if it _were_ temporarily more pleasurable to spend his heat with an alpha, that would be outweighed by the fact that doing so would have permanent implications that were less than desirable. And not just to Damen himself.

Not even a whole day had passed after Damen's very first – and very unexpected, at the time, for no one had thought for a moment that Damen would present as anything but an alpha – heat before Father had made it clear that Damen letting himself be bonded by an alpha would be a very bad idea. Damen would still be allowed to inherit, Father had said. The throne wouldn't revert to Kastor despite him being an alpha where Damen was 'only' an omega (the implication of that had made Damen bristle unhappily, but the exhaustion of a heat barely passed had made the potential fight seem like too much effort, so Damen had managed to hold his tongue for once). But that was with the expectation that Damen would never bring his sovereignty into question by bonding with an alpha. It didn't need to be an issue, claimed Father. The odds might be lower than with an alpha-omega pairing, but a beta woman could still bear any man an heir, as Damen himself was living proof. So there was really no reason to introduce an alpha Queen or Prince Consort and thereby bring into question who was _really_ making the decisions for the kingdom. 

As if Damen would just allow himself to be overridden or silenced like that by anyone, alpha or no alpha, bonded mate or not. Damen thought that he'd since managed to prove that he was just as able to lead as any alpha, and to not be cowed by anyone regardless of gender. Among other things, he'd won Akielos a war by facing off against a near-undefeatable alpha warrior and triumphing, hadn't he? But even so, Damen had gone along with his father's stipulation readily enough, because he'd actually been relieved to know that he wouldn't have to be bonded. Especially since Damen hadn't met anyone who he would even _want_ to mate with in the first place, Jokaste included.

As much as he preferred honesty, though, Damen got the feeling that it would be a bad idea to just come right out and say all of that so baldly to Jokaste. He doubted that she'd react well.

So instead, as diplomatically as he could manage, Damen said, "I appreciate the concern, but my omega slaves have never left me unsatisfied. I'm sure I'll be fine."

Jokaste narrowed her eyes slightly, but didn't argue.

Damen didn't want to take any chances, having heard too many cautionary stories of being completely unable to resist at the slightest whiff of scent. So, by design, there were no alphas anywhere nearby when the sweat broke out on Damen's brow and his legs began to tremble a few days later. 

His slaves tended to be slight in stature, at least when compared to him, so it took four of them to help Damen to his bed. Distracted as he was by the sudden near-overwhelming need thrumming through him, the slaves faded from his awareness until they formed a mostly indistinguishable bustle of pale limbs. Damen was, at least, aware of the one that released his chiton at the shoulder and waist and dabbed at his damp skin, her hands soothing at first but quickly growing maddening, even when she pressed her fingers inside him where he most needed attention. They weren't enough. Not even close. 

And Damen was also distantly aware of the congregation of slaves near the wall, for there were many of them grouped together. When most of them finally stepped back, they revealed a naked expanse of skin, broken only by the straps of leather the others had helped secure in place.

A carved length of marble had been firmly fastened into the leather, protruding outwards from the device. It looked to be among the smallest of those aids that Damen didn't doubt would have, as usual, been laid out on the stand beside the bed for Damen's easy use throughout his heat. Damen's body was insistently telling him that he could already take so much more than that little thing. However, Damen grudgingly conceded that the choice was probably the right one for now. His slaves knew how to care for him. The day or two after Damen's heat died away were usually far more bearable when he'd slowly built up his body's receptiveness over the first few hours of his heat rather than starting off with too much too fast. And it wasn't like the smaller items weren't satisfying in their own way, especially this early on. Just seeing that cock-shaped stone bobbing in the centre of the leather ignited a desire to have it inside him. 

The slaves started to disperse, moving towards the door. The hand around Damen's cock and the fingers pressing into his hole disappeared as well. Damen made a displeased noise, reaching after the retreating women. Usually even a subtler gesture than that would have stopped them and brought them to his side, but not today it seemed. They streamed out, apparently abandoning him.

Even so, Damen's outstretched hand was gently caught and held, a thumb rubbing comfortingly over the sensitive skin of his wrist. Lykaios, Damen recognised after a moment. She was staying with him even though the others were leaving. Right. Of course. It was always hard to recall with his mind in a heated haze, but this was how it usually went. The others would wait to be called upon later, perhaps even several at a time, once Lykaios had tired even though Damen was growing needier than ever. For now, though Lykaios would be enough to see to Damen's needs on her own.

She didn't hesitate or try to draw it out, obviously aware that he wanted it immediately. She'd long since learned to decipher his needs from things like body language and the desperate noises that he knew he often made despite himself when heat made him too inarticulate to provide anything close to clear instructions. So even though Damen didn't explicitly tell her to, she knew to position the blunt tip of the marble shaft against Damen. It rubbed teasingly at his opening, the small motions allowing Damen's slick to coat the surface of it. But Lykaios was too well-trained to fully take the lead or act in any way that could be interpreted as dominant, the way Jokaste would have if Damen had taken her up on her implied offer. So she paused before penetration, waiting for permission. 

Damen pushed himself downwards, pressing himself onto the fake cock without Lykaios even having to move.

He meant to say 'fuck me'. He didn't know whether the words actually came out. His intention must have been clear either way, though, for Lykaios shuffled her knees slightly forward to give herself some leverage and then slid the marble the rest of the way in. 

She set a slow pace at first, each thrust deep and steady, though she pleasantly surprised Damen with the occasional roll of her hips or quick and shallow motion in between to break the repetition. The gentle treatment wasn't enough to fully satisfy, though. Not on its own. Not when his desperation wasn't yet at its peak. When Damen voiced his complaint through a moan, she seemed to understand. With a quiet sort of obedience, she shifted so that her slight weight was braced against just one arm, freeing her other hand to reach downwards. 

The dual sensation of delicate fingers – slightly callused from where Lykaios strummed at her harp when Damen asked for entertainment in the evenings – circling around Damen's cock while he rocked himself more forcefully onto the heavy stone were enough to eradicate what little control Damen might have had. As he pulsed into Lykaios's hand, she stilled. Except, that was, for her hand, which she brought up to her lips as Damen watched. Her tongue flicked out, tasting, a reminder of how she looked when she was on her knees teasing at his cock. His cock twitched one last time at the sight.

"You're so lovely. So perfect for me," Damen said when his mouth was back under his control (for now, but not for long if his admittedly vague recollections of past heats were any indication). 

Lykaios blushed slightly at the compliment, as if she hadn't heard things to that effect from Damen dozens of times before. An alpha wouldn't have blushed, Damen thought. An alpha would probably have just taken his words as their due. When she pressed herself almost bonelessly against his chest, the purity of the action was also a reminder of Jokaste's less convincing attempt to do much the same thing days ago. Damen thought he would take a fake cock over obviously fake deference any day. Lykaios and the other omegas cared only for Damen's pleasure. From what Damen had heard, an alpha driven half out of his or her mind by Damen's heat scent, to the point that they probably wouldn't even actively recall that he was their Prince rather than just any random omega, would probably concentrate more on seeking out their own satisfaction, uncaring if they left him to suffer through the worst of the heat without much assistance. Why would Damen ever want that?

Damen couldn't truly imagine what it would be like not to have this. To have to rely on an alpha instead. Thankfully, Damen was not likely to be in a position to have to settle for that any time soon.


	2. Autumn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit and thanks to SteeleStingray who wisely suggested the use of chastity devices in response to me whining like a petty bitch a while back about how hard it is to figure out how to work around the taboo in Vere if men and women are all A/B/O. And then I got chastity devices on my kink bingo card, so obviously it was fate. This chapter is a fill for that square.

Given the context of his fast-approaching heat, Damen at first mistook the item for something much like what his female omega slaves wore when they attended to Damen, except that it comprised several chains attached to each other and to a long piece of metal instead of the system of leather straps Damen was used to seeing. Vere's taboo surely wouldn't outlaw such practices, Damen considered, since no children could result from it. And while Damen would have expected some ulterior motive, for Laurent was surely incapable of the kindness required to arrange such a thing just for the sake of easing Damen's aches, Laurent wasn't the one who'd produced the item. It was Radel who was holding out the device, and Radel had always given off the impression that he at least _thought_ that he was doing the right thing for Damen, even though Damen himself thought that Radel was grossly mistaken. 

But then Damen had spotted the imposing lock that was obviously designed to hold the thing in place so that the wearer wouldn't be able to remove it without the key on hand. Damen thought to look closer, trying to figure out how the thing would work in practice. 

Once he'd figured out what he was _actually_ looking at, he said, "You must be joking."

Laurent was looking over the item with a great deal less horror than Damen was currently feeling. No emotion at all showed on his face, in fact. "Have I given the impression of finding anything about having you forced upon me humorous?"

No, Damen acknowledged. But he wouldn't put it past Laurent to find his amusement at Damen's expense. 

"You can't really have expected anything different, surely. The Akielons might have enjoyed having an omega slut like you in their army, bending over for every alpha soldier who wanted a taste, but you must have realised that here in Vere we prefer not to have omegas popping out bastards every single time they go into heat."

"That won't be a problem. If the locks on the doors are sufficient to keep me inside, they should also keep alphas out. That will be a precaution enough," Damen tried to reason with Laurent. 

"I don't recall asking for your opinion on the matter. You might remember that you're a slave. I doubt they allow slaves to dictate their own treatment in Akielos." 

No well-trained slave would ask, or ever need to ask, for their masters already knew to treat them with care without having to be corrected. But whatever everyone else might think, Damen wasn't a slave. Not really. And Laurent's only resemblance to a proper master was his title and nothing more. So it was different.

"I'm just trying to help simplify things for you," Damen claimed. 

"I require neither simplicity nor your help."

"I'm _just saying_ ," and now Damen was speaking through gritted teeth, unable to hide his frustration, "that there's really no need to inconvenience yourself and your staff on my account. You can just… leave me to get on with it."

It wasn't the ideal way to pass a heat. Damen had never had to manage without someone (multiple someones, actually) to help him through it, and among other reasons that was because it was difficult to care for oneself during the disorienting blur of the worst of the heat symptoms. But even so, it would still be better than putting _that_ thing on.

"Is that how they deal with these kinds of things in Akielos? Do they just shut you away unattended for the duration and hope that by the time you emerge from seclusion a few days later you haven't been fucked by a veritable horde of alphas who followed your scent to its source? If that's the case, then no wonder there are so many bastards in your country that one was even able to end up on the throne."

Laurent sounded so openly mocking that Damen almost countered that he was never just left unattended at all. But that would have meant letting slip an explanation about Damen's omega slaves, and Damen remembered just in time that he was masquerading as a common soldier who wouldn't have had ready access to slaves of his own.

Laurent didn't seem to appreciate Damen's sudden silence. Doubtless he'd been hoping to get a rise out of Damen, which he would probably have used to justify ordering something even worse for Damen's heat than he was already suggesting. But Laurent eventually seemed to give up on getting that kind of reaction from him. 

Laurent said, "I have no intention leaving anything to chance. As my uncle keeps so _helpfully_ reminding me, you're supposed to be my responsibility. If the 'prize gift' of our alliance with Kastor ended up violated by some low-ranked alpha during heat because I failed to provide sufficient protection against it, Uncle would use it as yet another excuse to call into question my ability to look after and monitor my people. And that's if the child wasn't assumed to be mine." In a slightly lower voice, Laurent added, "Which I assume was the point of all this."

He said all of that as if he were absolutely certain that Damen being set upon by alphas was an unavoidable eventuality unless Laurent took this particular course. And as if he really did doubt that his own word on the matter would be believed. Arles truly was a snakepit, Damen thought.

With clear dismissal of Damen, Laurent looked to Radel. "Speaking of taking no chances, I have no intention of getting caught out by his heat starting a few hours earlier than expected. So have him fitted into that immediately."

"Of course, Your Highness. And, if I might ask, what items should I use?"

Laurent quirked an eyebrow. "I understood that you would be using the item you're holding in your hand. Wasn't that the point of presenting it for my approval?"

"Yes. But you'll see that there's also a place right here on the inside of it where I can attach any of a number of objects to make the experience more… bearable," Radel advised. 

"Is there," Laurent said flatly, not a question. 

"There are quite a lot of options. I can make suggestions for which of them would likely provide the most relief, if you prefer not to have to choose yourself."

Damen pictured having something similar to any of the range of marble and thickened glass cock replicas that he'd left behind in Ios – along with so many other things – protruding from the metal. It wouldn't be a perfect solution, considering he wouldn't be able to move on it much, but at this point he would settle for it. Better than the alternative. But the moment Damen dared to start thinking that way, Laurent's eyes slid back to Damen, calculating. There was a subtly amused air to his expression as he shook his head. 

"I think you'll find," Laurent said to Radel, "that there are no objects suitable for the task in my possession. The gift of an omega slave to an alpha Prince of Vere was _unexpected_ to say the least, given our traditions, so I'm sure that no one could complain about such a perfectly understandable oversight. Perhaps by his next heat we'll have remedied the problem." Damen could practically hear the 'if he's lucky' tacked onto the end.

Damen laughed humourlessly. Of course Laurent wouldn't allow Damen any kind of relief even when it would be a simple matter to do so, and even when it would cost Laurent nothing. Damen had just let himself get carried away with hope for a moment. He really ought to have known better.

Apparently confused, Radel started to say, "Actually, we have plenty of…" The look Laurent gave Radel quashed whatever contradiction he was about to offer. Radel didn't complete the thought. He frowned a little, but said, "Yes, Your Highness. I'm sure you're quite right."

Laurent departed without sparing Damen another look, obviously trusting Radel to prepare Damen as he'd instructed. That didn't mean that Damen had to make it easy on Radel, though. Damen was by now too used to being stripped down against his will to bother protesting that part, but he did resist when Radel tried to loop the chains of the device around him.

"I don't need it," Damen insisted.

"The Prince believes otherwise, so you'll wear it. Honestly, you should be grateful to the Prince for ensuring your protection like this."

Grateful? To Laurent? What a bizarre concept. Damen could hardly imagine it.

Radel continued, "It's not as if this is entirely unusual. Many of the other unclaimed omegas in the palace wear these during their heats as well. It's been a popular option for generations. You wouldn't want to end up bred by whichever passing alpha got a whiff of you, would you?"

No, Damen wouldn't. But Radel wasn't fooling anyone except perhaps himself about the real intention of the device. It was primarily about control, not protection. Laurent had made that much clear enough.

But even though he didn't agree with Radel's justifications, the alternative to 'voluntarily' letting him put the thing on Damen was clearly having the guards called in and being held down so that it could be secured in place anyway. So Damen eventually, grudgingly, held himself still enough for Radel to fit the device onto his otherwise naked body. The sound of the lock engaging seemed to echo, a reminder that Damen wouldn't be getting out of this until Laurent decreed that he was allowed. 

It was unbearably snug, though that was obviously the point; too loose and it would lose its effectiveness. Damen could feel that it was too tight to even comfortably slide a single finger between his skin and the contoured metal plate that now extended around from just behind his balls to halfway up the curve of his ass. It certainly wouldn't give Damen the space and correct angle to insert anything large enough to actually help. The chains to which the metal plate was attached dug into him in a way that Damen knew would leave bruises extensive and pronounced enough to be obvious even on his skin. 

At least the front of the device was comprised only of two chains rising up on either side of his groin to connect to the front of the metal plate to the 'belt' around his waist, leaving Damen's cock entirely uncovered. At least Damen would be spared the pain of growing aroused under the tight confinement of unyielding metal. That was likely the only mercy he would be granted at any point during this heat. 'Mercy' was a strong word, though, when Damen knew that being able to touch himself like that wouldn't be enough to really help once his heat was in full force, though. The feeling of his hand desperately twisting at the head of his cock, his thumb rubbing at the slit, might be enough in the first few hours, but it certainly wasn't what his body was really going to be craving a day into the heat. 

Damen didn't expect to see Laurent again until after his heat had entirely passed, so it was surprising when Laurent reappeared a few hours later, when Damen knew he must be on the verge of slipping into his heat. Not only that, but servants followed Laurent into Damen's room, carrying a plush chair fit for royalty between them. After they'd positioned it in the corner of the room, Laurent draped himself over it as though he was intending to settle in for a long stretch. 

"You're going to stay and watch?" Damen asked incredulously. 

"Obviously I have to be sure that the precautions are working."

He could have easily assigned someone else to witness Damen going through his heat and report back to him, if that was his intention. Radel, perhaps, or a few of the guards. Damen pointed out as much aloud.

"You want a bigger audience, is that it? You're lucky I don't throw you in the ring for the whole court to watch you writhe and moan. They'd appreciate the show, and I would no longer have to hear people whispering about the possibility that I'm falsely passing you off as an omega just so that I have a reason not to fuck you. As if I need an excuse."

It wouldn't be the first time people hadn't wanted to believe what their noses were telling them about Damen. Damen remembered the visage of Laurent's own shock and disbelief when he'd first arrived to inspect his new slave, clearly expecting a docile omega and instead finding someone who looked and acted like Damen. Damen wouldn't be surprised to learn that Laurent – and most of the other Veretians as well – had never seen an omega quite like Damen before. Damen was, after all, considerably larger in stature than almost all of the alphas he'd seen at court in Arles. And he was sure that he looked nothing at all like the other omegas that had arrived alongside him from Akielos, so they couldn't even explain it away as just a result of him being a 'barbarian' omega. Of course they would have trouble seeing him as an omega at all when he wasn't soft and submissive the way they expected.

That was the point. Damen had worked harder than even the most dedicated of career soldiers, his efforts starting even before the exhaustion from his first heat had fully abated. A terse discussion with his father and Damen's own observations of how people had immediately started to look at him like he was somehow lesser than before just because he was an omega had been enough to convince Damen that he needed to make sure that their newfound assumptions about him weren't validated. He had to ensure that no one ever had a legitimate reason to call him delicate or incapable just because of his gender. Damen wouldn't claim that he didn't look at all like an omega, because no matter how hard he pushed and built up his body, the curve of his hips and the soft layer that clung over the top of his muscles still made his omega nature obvious to anyone who looked closely. But he also couldn't be considered a weak omega by any stretch of the imagination. That was the real point; not to distance himself from his gender so much as to make sure that everyone understood that his gender made no practical difference, at least as far as he was concerned.

Except in times like these, of course. It was hard to say that it made no real difference whether he was alpha, beta or omega when the mere fact that he was an omega meant that he was about to lose himself spiralling into lust and need, especially when he couldn't find fulfilment this time because of the metal keeping him from helping himself.

That was probably the real reason that Laurent wanted to be there himself, Damen realised. While it was difficult to imagine Laurent wanting to watch Damen going through the usual motions of his heat, Damen _could_ on the other hand believe that Laurent wanted to watch him suffer and make a fool of himself under these specific circumstances. Why settle for the distant knowledge that he was putting Damen through all new levels of discomfort when he could witness it for himself? Obviously that was enough to outweigh the part of the experience that would be more distasteful to Laurent. 

And that would all make sense to Damen… if Laurent were a beta like the two guards that had entered the room along with him. Then Laurent would be unaffected by Damen's heat himself. But that wasn't the case. Under normal circumstances, Laurent being an alpha wouldn't concern Damen in the slightest. Even if there was some hidden alpha strength there, Damen was still certain that he could physically overpower Laurent if Laurent ever tried to attack or force him. But this hardly counted as normal circumstances. When Damen was in heat, he couldn't imagine that he would be trying to push Laurent away if Laurent came for him.

And he _would_ come for Damen. The chains securing Damen's wrists to the floor would stop him from crawling to the source of the alpha scent, but there were no such barriers to Laurent's movement. Laurent was probably arrogant enough to think that he could hold himself back through sheer force of will, remaining as impassive as ever. But it was a matter of biology, and even Laurent could only fight what would be an overpowering reaction to an omega's heat scent for so long. At least the collar the Veretians had placed around Damen's neck weeks ago and the device that was now between Damen's legs meant there would be no permanent outcomes to worry about. 

Though Damen didn't particularly want to find out what an alpha with heat-induced possessiveness would do when he found that a piece of metal was standing in the way of him fucking 'his' omega. Laurent's fury was usually a cold thing, but that hardly meant he was incapable of frustrated violence.

Radel departed, but the two guards remained. could barely even make out the smell of the betas at all. Laurent, on the other hand, was already an irritatingly tempting lure, the waft of alpha tickling at Damen's over-sensitised nose. Damen was under no illusions; in a few hours, that scent and the man it was coming from would spark nothing but _want_ from Damen.

It took perhaps another half an hour or so before Damen's heat began. Damen saw Laurent's reaction – scrabbling reflexively at the armrests of his chair and tensing what looked to be practically every muscle in his body – almost before Damen felt the effects of the shift in his own body. The ability to overlook his own reaction in favour of Laurent's didn't last more than a moment, though. Damen curled against the cushions under him, unthinkingly reaching back to try to soothe himself. His fingers encountered metal; his first reminder that he could do nothing to make this easier on himself. It wouldn't be the last, though, or the worst. Damen hated the thought of Laurent and those guards seeing him desperately trying to tear the metal away, tears of frustration running down his cheeks, but there was little chance of avoiding exactly that. That probably wouldn't even be the worst of it. 

Damen tried to hold himself still at first, much as he could see that Laurent was doing. But the decision was out of his hands soon enough. He couldn't stop himself. 

Damen pressed his ass hard down into the floor, mindlessly trying to grind down onto the metal, seeking out whatever small amount of stimulation he might be able to get, even knowing it would do nothing to quench the already burning need to have something actually inside him. Unfortunately, the flat press of the contoured metal against his skin wasn't even really enough to be a proper tease, let alone anything more than that. The metal wasn't shaped to dip far enough between his cheeks to come into direct contact with his entrance, so there was no help there. It did press against his perineum in a tantalising way, which _almost_ was enough to stimulate that spot inside him, but that slight pressure was still far from what Damen needed. And yet that, combined with his own hands sliding over his cock and gently (for now) squeezing his balls, was all the potential relief he had available to him.

"Look at you," Damen heard. Laurent's voice was roughened in a way that made Damen shiver. "You're like an animal, writhing around on the ground like a slut. You'd let anyone fuck you right now, wouldn't you? Even me."

Yes. It was the truth. Except at the same time, Laurent was wrong; there was no 'even' about it. Of everyone in this palace, and even anyone Damen had known elsewhere when he'd been free, Damen would _especially_ let Laurent in particular bend Damen over and fuck him through this. He was able to think of little else. When he pictured himself getting what he so desperately needed, there was no omega with a marble shaft in his mind. The blond hair wasn't Lykaios's, but Laurent's. It was Laurent's face, and Laurent's thin fingers taking hold of Damen's body, and Laurent's cock pushing into him until the knot near the base expanded inside Damen just when he needed it most.

That was nothing more than a fantasy. There was no such relief on the way. It was difficult to remember that when everything was slowly blurring into little more than pure sensation. The knowledge that Laurent's benevolence was non-existent was entirely lost to him at some point, Damen remembered looking at Laurent and appealing to him with a whispered, "Please…"

He also remembered Laurent climbing to his feet. Damen's anticipation flared. But Laurent remained still for a long time, just looking down on Damen. Then he very clearly articulated the word, "No." 

Damen flinched like the word was a physical blow.

Laurent left the room just moments later, obviously satisfied and content to leave others to watch Damen now that he'd heard Damen beg and made him go wanting. Even in the face of that callousness, Damen couldn't stop himself from whining as he watched Laurent go.

The guards remained, but they were useless to him.

Damen lost track of how many times he cried out Laurent's name over the course of days. Damen didn't even really know what he would ask from Laurent if he came when Damen called, considering that Laurent couldn't fuck him the way he wanted and needed. For Laurent to go to his knees and suck Damen, providing a different kind of stimulation? For Laurent instead make Damen take _his_ cock into Damen's mouth, simulating what he would do to Damen's other hole if he were able?

It hardly mattered what it was that Damen wanted in the end, though, for Laurent didn't return or respond in any way even once. 

Now that he'd ensured that Damen was both unmolested and suffering, Laurent obviously didn't care about him at all.


	3. Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that there are **warnings** in place for this chapter that will probably bother some people. Click through to the endnotes for spoilers about those if you're concerned that it may adversely affect you. 
> 
> This went from the blue balls kind of torture straight to emotional torture, sorry about that. But the chapter is called Winter for a reason. Speaking of which, no need to @ me about the seasons in the chapter titles probably not matching up to events quite correctly, because I already know. But the canon timelines in Capri are all over the place anyway, so please just let me have my cheap thematic device.
> 
> Anyway, in lighter news, this chapter blacks out the last remaining squares of my current kink bingo card, yay! Though I'm going to ask for a second one, since bingo runs through til June and I want to keep taking part because it's fun, so hopefully expect more fic.

Nikandros had looked horrified from the moment he'd spotted the thick metal collar protruding from the top of Damen's high-laced Veretian-style jacket. 

Damen had known that exact reaction would be unavoidable when he'd asked the blacksmith to leave the collar on after the slave cuffs had been removed. He couldn't say it wasn't understandable. Damen had felt exactly the same about the collar himself when he'd first felt identified the foreign restriction around his throat upon waking in a cell in Arles. Damen's hand had darted up then, somewhat uncoordinated from the disorienting effects of the drugs still in his system. His fingertips had somewhat clumsily brushed over the thick soldered metal encircling his throat, hoping to encounter anything like a latch. There was none. Damen wasn't ashamed to admit that he'd reacted badly to that discovery.

In Akielos, a collar sealed permanently around an omega's neck could mean only one thing. It unmistakably proclaimed to anyone, even those too distant to catch the claimed scent on the air, that the omega wearing it was already bonded to an alpha. 

Once Damen had calmed down enough to think it through, he'd realised that couldn't be what the collar represented for him. With no detectable change in his scent and none of the tell-tale signs that one of the drugs he'd been given had forced him into a heat during the time he'd spent unconscious on the journey to Vere, Damen knew there was no way a bond could have been initiated. But the collar did on the face of it seem to likely serve as a declaration that that would change at the first opportunity. Radel had claimed otherwise; he'd said that in Vere a collar was meant only to be preventative, forming an impenetrable layer between alpha teeth and omega scent glands. Veretian omegas apparently left their alpha's bite scar on clear display for all to see instead. But Damen had thought it likely that Radel had just been lying to lull Damen into a false sense of security so that he would act more pliable. Radel was Veretian, after all. When _weren't_ they lying?

It had made a terrible kind of sense that Kastor would send Damen off to be not just enslaved, but also mated. Damen knew that he would never let some alpha control him even if he were bonded to them, but Father had always said that the kyroi and the populace would find it difficult to view Damen as the ultimate authority if some alpha was in what was viewed as a position of power over him. Add on top of that that the alpha in question was Veretian, and people would surely choose to rally behind Kastor instead of him. It was a plan that suited Kastor's needs.

It wasn't a plan that Laurent had seemed to want to go along with, though. Whatever Kastor had intended in sending Damen to the alpha Prince of Vere, it was clear that Prince Laurent didn't want to claim his new omega slave any more than Damen wanted to be bonded to Laurent in turn. 

Damen had been so sure of that back then, from his first encounter with Laurent. His heat in Arles had only seemed to prove as much. But then just days ago Damen would have said that he'd been proven wrong, because Laurent's interest in him had been clearly demonstrated. And now? Now he had no idea. 

Only time and the manner of his reception at Fortaine would tell, Damen supposed.

Though Nikandros seemed set on not going to Fortaine at all.

"It would make more sense to return to Akielon territory," Nikandros announced as the horses were being readied for them to set off on the second long ride of the day.

It would be safer for Damen, was what Nikandros meant. 

"To where? Marlas? We'd have to cross the doorstep of Fortaine on our way there anyway. Where we've so kindly been cordially invited." The last part Damen said sardonically.

"You were left waiting in vain while expecting his presence. You owe him nothing more than that same experience."

"I'll appear weak if I don't confront this immediately and you know it."

It was true. And yet it was little more than an excuse for what Damen wanted to do anyway and they both knew it.

"I don't think that 'confronting this' is what you'll be spending the next few days doing."

Even if Damen wasn't already aware that it would be coming on soon enough from the way that Nikandros and some of the men had looked at him and gravitated unconsciously towards him even before they'd departed Ravenel, the way that Nikandros was verbally dancing around the issue rather than just confronting it bluntly would have been enough for Damen to realise exactly what Nikandros was hinting at. Nikandros only ever grew awkward like that when it was regarding the one thing in Damen's life from which Nikandros, as an alpha, was entirely excluded: Damen's heat. 

Damen could assume from the signs he'd picked up on that the onset would be maybe a day away, or two at the most. Easily enough time to comfortably get to Marlas and arrange something as close to his usual preparations as was possible outside the palace, which was clearly what Nikandros was hoping for. 

That wasn't what Damen wanted, though.

"No. We ride to Fortaine, as planned."

"He left us to die," Nikandros reminded Damen, not for the first time today. 

"We don't know that."

"Even if he didn't –"

"We ride to Fortaine," Damen repeated flatly, and that was the end of it.

The inescapable confrontation with Laurent was both better and worse than Damen had expected. It turned out that there was no need for the kind of revelation Damen had been dreading, and Nikandros's supposition that Laurent had purposely sent Damen and his people to their deaths without support had been contradicted just as Damen had hoped for. But at the same time, Damen found Laurent even colder than expected. Laurent's prior knowledge of Damen's identity meant he'd had ample time to build his walls higher than ever; to prepare himself to meet Damen as an exiled king – and, more importantly, as his brother's killer – rather than as a former slave he'd seemed, at least for a time, to care for despite himself. There was nothing of the closeness that had developed between them in either Laurent's countenance or his words in that tent outside Fortaine. It was almost as if none of what Damen remembered (and couldn't stop thinking about) had happened at all. As if they were right back where they were during those earliest days in Arles. Or perhaps worse than then, even, for now Laurent knew _exactly_ how best to hurt Damen.

At no point was that more obvious than when Damen resisted Laurent's request for him to hand over Delpha.

"Is that really how you want to play it?" Laurent asked slyly. "I could always just wait a little while. In a day, maybe two, I think you'll be far more open to 'negotiation', won't you?" 

It was obvious that Laurent could smell signs of approaching heat exactly as Nikandros had, even from under the blood and dirt that caked Damen's skin. And why wouldn't he? Laurent was, after all, by now very closely acquainted with Damen's scent. Of course he'd be able to notice the difference immediately, regardless of the distractions.

"I remember how you begged for me last time, in Arles. 'Laurent, please, I need you, fuck me, fill me up, do whatever you like to me, I don't care, just make me yours'." Laurent tone was so scathing that Damen was surprised he'd managed to avoid flinching in response.

Damen himself couldn't clearly remember saying some of that. Most heat-related recollections that Damen retained at all (which wasn't actually many of them, gratefully, because he'd prefer not to remember how ridiculously he acted and sounded during the worst moments) were hazy and lacking in specifics. But Damen didn't doubt for a minute that he _had_ said it. Nor did it surprise him that Laurent knew of it even though he'd left the room before Damen had grown quite _that_ desperate. Laurent would have had his guards relaying any details of Damen's heat to Laurent after he'd departed, so that Laurent could laugh and feel smug over it. Damen had expected that then. But he hadn't really expected for Laurent to use it against him like this _now_. Not after…

But it was clear that Laurent meant to hurt Damen. And he wasn't the kind of man to bypass the most harmful of the weapons at his disposal when the whole point was to leave deep and painful wounds.

Damen didn't really want to hurt Laurent in turn, but he couldn't let Laurent's attacks go undefended, either. "Funny. I seem to remember you saying a few things with similar sentiments. When you bent over for me."

Sounding bored, Laurent asked, "Is this the point where you rub in the fact that you fucked me even though I'm an alpha? Are you hoping to make me feel embarrassed about it?" 

"No. That wasn't what I meant." Even if it had been, Laurent didn't come across as someone who was even capable of shame anyway.

"Good. Because it's hardly comparable," said Laurent dismissively. "I've never come close to taking leave of my senses the way you did during heat. And as you'll do again, I'd imagine. In a few hours I think you'd promise me much more than Delfeur just for the chance that I'd touch you. You'd sign any paper I put in front of you, wouldn't you?"

It was doubtless true, but Damen shook his head even so. "The only thing you'd accomplish by engineering that kind of farce is ensuring that no one will ever trust my judgment and my control enough to actually recognise me as King of Akielos. Your documents will be worth nothing then."

"True," Laurent said. "I doubt anyone will follow an omega who signs away half his country or more in exchange for a knot. But what makes you think that alone isn't my intended aim? Losing your chance at ever successfully reclaiming your birthright would be less retribution than you deserve for all that you've taken from me, but it would at least be so very sweet to know that I was the one who deprived you of what you want most."

"At what cost? It might have been different before they found out I'm still alive, but now there's no alliance with Nikandros, or any Akielon, without me. Is it worth it to you to give up that support after you've just swindled it from me? Will you really needlessly sabotage yourself like that?"

"You have no idea how tempted I am. But luckily, I won't need to do that," Laurent claimed. And he was right.

Breaking the news to Nikandros went just about as well as Damen expected.

"You can't be held to that agreement," Nikandros said. "You're… not exactly in the optimal condition to negotiate with him at the moment."

"My heat's still some time away from beginning, so there's nothing wrong with my 'condition'," Damen said. "Or are you going to tell me that you think I'm just generally incapable of saying no to an alpha? That I don't – or can't – know my own mind because I'm so weak to my own nature?"

Nikandros's frustration was obvious. "You know that's not it. But you can't say you're not trying to… to _woo_ him. I didn't even have to meet him to know it, because I know _you_. You wouldn't have taken the chance of coming here while exhausted and just hours from your heat, and without anywhere secure to retreat to except the fortress that he controls, if you weren't hoping to have him be the one to see you through it. You must know how terrible that idea is."

Damen did know that. And after his earlier confrontation with Laurent, he knew the likelihood of it ever happening was minimal, if not nil. 

But even being fully aware of all of that, Damen still sent away the slave that Nikandros later had waiting for him in the tent that had been erected for his use. He had no intention of accepting the small array of omega slaves that Nikandros undoubtedly would already have arranged to assist Damen through his heat either.

Damen intended to spend the night in the tent, for he was sure that his heat was at least far enough away for that to be safe, but someone arrived at his tent before he could even drift off to sleep. It was a servant, who was dressed in the colours of the Crown Prince of Vere and spoke Veretian. That alone left little mystery about who must have sent him, but his opening words confirmed it.

"His Highness Prince Laurent of Vere has issued an invitation for you to stay inside the walls of his fortress, Your Majesty."

"'Exalted', not 'Your Majesty'," Damen corrected automatically, without even thinking. It was odd to notice how easily he'd slipped back into his proper role in some respects, while in other ways he almost couldn't imagine ever returning to the way things had been, or adjusting to the as-yet-never-experienced expectations of him now that he was King.

The servant dipped his head in either acquiescence or apology. Damen almost would have expected Laurent to send a servant who would all but spit in Damen's face rather than treat him with the due deference owed to someone of Damen's rank. But they were technically allies now, he supposed, so Laurent probably hadn't had much choice about it.

Just as Laurent didn't have a great deal of choice about this particular invitation. It would be disastrous for their alliance and their subsequence chances of success against the Regent and Kastor if Damen were left to go into heat with nothing but the canvas of his tent between him and a camp teeming with alpha soldiers when there was a perfectly secure venue right there, readily available for use, if only Laurent would offer. It was just prudence and politics. Nothing more.

Damen would have been foolish to decline the offer, even temporarily. He couldn't be certain that Laurent would extend the offer again in the morning if Damen turned him down now.

"The Prince asks that your guards remain outside. He asked me to convey that you may choose from among his own guards if you're worried for your safety," the servant said when Nikandros's men who'd been assigned to guard Damen tried to accompany them when Damen agreed to go.

Nikandros's men protested when Damen agreed to that term. Damen could hardly blame them for that. Even to Damen, who knew that it didn't make sense for Laurent to use this opportunity to hurt or kill him when he'd already had multiple chances to do that and when Damen was now more useful to him than he'd ever been before, it still sounded like a set-up for a betrayal.

Damen shook his head and told the men, "I trust Prince Laurent's Guard." Some of them, anyway. Others were probably still too affected by the betrayal of finding out who Damen actually was for Damen to be sure of what they would try to do to him if left to their own devices. But they wouldn't be left to decide that for themselves, anyway. They would be operating under Laurent's orders. And, again, it wouldn't be an intelligent move for Laurent to act against Damen like that now. 

Since the guards would be remaining behind, Damen instructed them, "Please inform Nikandros where I've gone."

That wouldn't go well, Damen knew, and tried not to feel too unkind for passing it off onto someone else.

Damen let himself be escorted in silence over the distance to the fort and then inside. The stone hallways were more or less deserted. There probably wasn't a single alpha in the entire fort; for all Damen knew, Laurent himself was intending to remain out in his tent, relying only on servants and guards to deal with Damen.

Laurent did send guards to watch Damen's door, true to his word. Or partially true, since he didn't actually let Damen himself select the guards the way the servant had said he would. He may or may not have complied if Damen had been dissatisfied and asked to swap to someone else; Damen couldn't really be sure. Damen had no real reason to protest, though. They were betas, and they didn't look at him with murder in their eyes. Given the circumstances, that was about the best that Damen thought he could ask for.

Damen must have been overo-exhausted from riding so far to and from the battle at Charcy, and more particularly from the battle itself, for it took him a long time to find sleep despite how he couldn't keep his eyes open when he tried. He must have managed, though, because when he was startled back into awareness with a loud clanging noise of what sounded like metal trays, light was streaming into the room and a servant was arranging what looked to be breakfast for him. 

Before the servant left, Damen not-so-subtly inquired after how he might procure some items to aid him in managing his heat. He was careful to specify that he wasn't interested in something like what he'd been forced into in Arles, so his meaning couldn't really have been mistaken. But the servant acted like he either hadn't heard or hadn't understood Damen, even though Damen had definitely spoken in clear Veretian. The same thing happened when he was brought lunch. He didn't get a third opportunity to ask for – or demand – the items at dinner, because by then it was a little late to be sitting up for a meal. His heat had already begun. 

When someone did finally enter Damen's room again, it wasn't a servant. 

Damen's whole body reacted to the sudden influx of alpha scent. To that _particular_ alpha's scent. He didn't mean to, but he couldn't quite stop himself from presenting his body as if wordlessly asking to be claimed, even though Damen couldn't be bitten and bonded with the collar secured in place. Logically Damen might know that, but his instincts said otherwise.

Laurent looked him over coolly, almost as if he weren't affected by Damen's heat scent, or his nakedness, or even the fact that Damen's fingers had just been pressed deep inside him before he'd detected Laurent's entrance (and even now those fingers were twitching involuntarily, giving away Damen's urge to return them to what they'd been doing).

"No one who saw you like this could imagine you killing thousands of men single-handedly," Laurent remarked (something of an exaggeration; it hadn't been _single-handed_ ). "You look like you were born just to be fucked and nothing more. That's what you want from me now, isn't it." Laurent's words weren't presented as a question. "You don't want to push me down and push inside as you did in that room in Ravenel. You want me to be the one to take you right now."

Yes. Damen caught the word before it left his lips.

Laurent stepped towards him. And again. He reached out to Damen slowly. Damen's whole body arched towards him. He couldn't properly feel the pressure of Laurent's fingertip through the thick metal, but he got the impression that Laurent was tracing around his collar. "You removed the cuffs but kept the collar," Laurent observed. "Yet I'm given to understand that Akielon omegas don't typically use that kind of protection any more than you use the devices we have in Vere to prevent an unwanted alpha from fucking you during heat. But you apparently anticipated that you _would_ have that kind of use for it this time. Why else leave it on?"

Anticipated? No. But hoped, against the odds, and even knowing the consequences? Damen would be lying if he suggested otherwise.

Though that hadn't been precisely why Damen had left the collar in place. He could hardly tell Laurent that he'd recently come to see the collar almost the way he would have if he'd worn it as part of the Akielon traditions. Like Damen was already promised irrevocably to one particular alpha, and off limits to all others. 

Laurent's fingertip moved from the metal, skirting instead around where it met skin. Damen whined without meaning to at the feel of it, just an inch or two above his scent gland.

"You're already so needy. Pathetic," Laurent derided him.

"Don't," Damen said, on the verge of outright pleading. It had been bad enough in the tent, when Damen had known to be wary. His defences hadn't been high enough then, but they were non-existent now. He couldn't handle Laurent's cruelty when he was like this.

"I hate you," Laurent continued, spiting him and his request for Laurent to stop it. Laurent's voice was coarse. Damen would have said that was the effect of emotion, but Laurent made it hard to believe it was possible that he felt anything that could affect him at all. 

Damen rolled over, turning his back to Laurent as if that would block out the words.  
"I know," Damen managed to say. 

"I hate you _so much_ This won't change that," Laurent said bitterly. "It means nothing. Remember that."

His palm came to rest on Damen's hip, rolling Damen back around. Wide-eyed, Damen took in Laurent's face. There was no hint there that would make Damen think that Laurent had changed his mind. And yet he reached for Damen all the same.

The guards outside must have heard Damen's loud moan, a garbled version of Laurent's name. Damen didn't care. Laurent's fingers exploring his slicked hole were the only thing he could concentrate on.

Laurent parted his own laces for once instead of ordering Damen to do it. Damen wondered whether he could take that as a sign of impatience (probably not). Laurent didn't even bother to fully undress, purposely leaving a physical as well as an emotional barrier between them. Or maybe he just didn't want Damen to see the extent of his wounded shoulder, assuming Damen would see it as a weakness or think up some way to exploit it. That was what Laurent himself would have done if their positions were reversed. At the moment, all Damen would have been able to think of doing was to press his lips to the bandage as if he hoped that he could kiss away the pain of it and reintroduce something of that soft surprise he remembered to Laurent's face in response. Laurent wouldn't have allowed him to do that, though, Damen supposed.

Laurent didn't have to work himself to hardness, Damen noted. The heat scent had probably been enough, though Damen liked to believe that the sprawling display of Damen's naked body had helped as well. That didn't mean that Laurent still didn't make Damen wait, though. Toying with him. He paid little attention when Damen made a sound of protest. Damen knew what he was waiting for.

More diffidently than the last time Laurent had heard him beg, Damen said, "Please."

Laurent didn't walk away this time.

When Laurent pushed into him, Damen's first thought – when he was capable of having a cogent one at all – was that he'd obviously been fooling himself when he'd thought that he wasn't missing anything by having an omega with an impersonation of an alpha cock pressing inside him during heat rather than an actual alpha. It was completely different to feel the warmth of Laurent's cock as it pressed into him, and the way it twitched as Damen clenched around it. It was so much better.

Though maybe that was just because Damen was hyperaware that it was Laurent.

 _His_ alpha.

He pushed the thought away.

Damen should have insisted on having Laurent take him like this at Ravenel. He wished he could have had this experience with his mind and senses unclouded by heat, for comparison if nothing else. To know whether it was actually as good as his senses were telling him (it shouldn't be, considering Laurent obviously wasn't used to doing this), or whether it was the distorted perceptions of heat alone guiding his opinion and making him whisper Laurent's praises. Damen wasn't sure he'd ever get the opportunity to find that out in the future; it seemed unlikely that Laurent would let himself be drawn into Damen's bed outside of heat ever again.

Damen wanted to hold onto every detail of the experience, but he found them figuratively slipping through his fingers, the pleasure of it blurring everything. He did, however, manage to hang onto the few words that Laurent uttered later on. Laurent could mock Damen for how he acted during heat all he liked, but Laurent was affected by it as well. Enough so that Laurent too finally lost some of his vaunted control despite how much he was obviously trying to hold himself back and remain silent.

"I'm going to knot so deep in you," Laurent said, his eyes barely open wide enough to see the flash of blue. Damen vaguely wondered whether he was even aware that he was saying it.

"Yes," said Damen. "I need it. I want..."

"Fill you up until you're round with it," Laurent half-muttered. "Like you'll be in a few months."

Damen let out a startled, but pleased, groan at that mental picture, and the implications of it.

"You're mine."

"Yes." 

When Laurent's cock swelled inside him that first time, the pressure of the knot was certainly a welcome relief, but it was still inarguably uncomfortable. The pain of it was just a little too intense for his pleasure-striving mind to entirely convert it into just more sensation. Each pulse increased that sensation, and Damen wasn't sure he could take it, but he would have no choice until the knot went down. Though he knew the moment it did that he would mourn its temporary loss. Damen was already imagining stuffing his own fingers into himself, trying to mimic the sensation. Pushing the escaping come back inside in an effort to hold onto that too-full feeling, and to… make sure. 

That thought was enough to finish him.

One of Laurent's hands rested flat against Damen's belly, his palm working small circles over the softness there, while the other squeezed at Damen's cock as it ejaculated. 

"Perfect." 

Damen doubted Laurent had intended to say it. He wondered if either of them would remember him saying that later.

As it happened, Damen must have forgotten a lot – more, even, than usual for his heats – for he could only recall another two or maybe three times of their bodies twisting together like that before he awoke, fully cognisant if a little tired. He was alone. His heat must have broken while he was napping. Laurent must have smelled that and taken that as his cue to leave, unwilling to have to deal with Damen afterwards. Of course. Damen should have known.

Damen's head jerked hopefully towards the door when it heard it open. It wasn't, however, Laurent who entered. 

Nikandros pointedly didn't look directly at him until Damen had pulled the mess of the bedsheets over himself. It wasn't like Nikandros had never seen Damen naked, but he hadn't done so under these circumstances. Alphas didn't tend to be allowed near unbonded omegas until they'd washed away the lingering heat scent, just in case it was still enough to set the alpha off. But Damen couldn't imagine seeing Nikandros as a threat in that respect. Heat or not, Nikandros would never.

"You aren't bonded." Nikandros's relief was palpable, even though logically there had never been a question of that.

"Of course not." 

"The collar?"

"Yes."

Damen distantly recalled Laurent burying his face into Damen's neck at least once. Things might have been very different without that ring of metal in place. He tried to tell himself that what he was feeling was gratitude.

"Then the situation can still be recovered," Nikandros concluded. He crossed the room to get closer to Damen – though it was obvious that he was still trying to maintain as much distance as he practically could – and held out a cup that Damen hadn't noticed in offering for Damen to take.

Under other circumstances, Nikandros would never have delivered something like this himself. He was no mere servant. But in a fort under Veretian control, with the Veretian in question not being well-disposed to Damen – the supposedly contrary evidence that Nikandros must currently have been seeing notwithstanding – Damen probably wouldn't have accepted a strange concoction from anyone short of Nikandros himself. Nikandros must have known that. Of course he'd have pushed aside his pride and argued his way inside Fortaine for his King. And for something this potentially important.

Damen didn't recognise the smell of it, having never needed to drink it himself, but he knew what it must be. 

"From what I hear, that will make me sick for hours on end," Damen said, as if that were the real reason he was hesitating to take it from Nikandros's hand. "I need to go talk to the bannermen as soon as possible. If they're not already at the Veretians' throats and vice versa, they will be if I waste any more time than necessary holed up in here."

"This _is_ necessary. If you stand before men like Makedon like _this_ , be prepared for them to decide that you must have given away Delpha for a very different reason than the ultimate good of Akielos," Nikandros said flatly. "There isn't a rush, anyway. They understand your current absence, for all that they don't enjoy having wait within almost literal spitting distance of Veretians. They aren't expecting to see you for at least another day." Nikandros paused for a long stretch, then added, "After all, less than a full day has passed since your confinement began."

Damen looked sharply away. An omega's heat usually lasted two to three days. Certainly Damen's had always endured for at least that long. There was one very obvious reason why it might have stopped early, though. Damen could rarely smell his omega scent, but Nikandros certainly could. He must have been able to smell any resulting shift. But Damen couldn't bring himself to ask him to verify it. He didn't need to hear it said aloud.

"Who knows?" Damen asked. 

"The guards outside are obviously aware that it's over or I wouldn't have been allowed in, and likely a select few servants as well. I assume they'll be ordered to silence, as _his_ position would be disadvantaged by this as well. As far as I'm aware, I'm the only one who was outside the walls of Fortaine who was made aware. The message Prince Laurent sent me was discreet. I doubt he sent any others."

Ah. So Nikandros hadn't needed to forcefully persuade his way inside the fort after all. Laurent had obviously ordered that he be allowed. Laurent must, Damen realised, have known what Nikandros would bring with him. Damen didn't think it was used in Vere, but Akielos made no secret of it, and Laurent could have learned of its use at any time. Laurent had to have known and wanted it to happen, or else he wouldn't have facilitated Damen receiving it.

Of course Laurent would want Damen to drink it. Nikandros was right; this would undermine Laurent's position as well. Laurent couldn't afford to lose support for having fathered a child with an omega outside a bond. He would be seen to have flouted his own country's rules on the matter, adding to the already expansive list of charges that were being levelled against him (and unlike most of those other accusations, this one would be true and irrefutable). He might have been able to talk his way into being ultimately forgiven for his indiscretion – heat didn't always provide a lot of choice in the matter on either side – if the omega in question had been anyone other than Damianos Prince-killer. But Damen couldn't see the Veretians giving Laurent the benefit of the doubt in this particular case. Surely Laurent wouldn't want to take that chance.

And Laurent hated him. Their time together wouldn't change that; Laurent had said so himself. Parents being literally at war with each other was no kind of situation to bring a child into. 

Was it?

Nikandros slid the cup into Damen's hands without asking permission to do so. His own hands lingered over the outside of Damen's for a moment, making sure Damen wasn't going to drop it. Nikandros couldn't order him, of course, but this was surely the strongest form of 'advice' he would ever be allowed to offer.

He was right to give it.

Damen lifted the cup to his lips.

Damen didn't emerge from the room for another day and a half. By then the sickness had abated, and the scent of alpha – and of other things – had been thoroughly bathed from Damen's freshly-scrubbed skin. There was no evidence, except for the sheets that had already been ordered to be burned, that Damen had spent his heat in company at all, let alone with Laurent.

When Laurent saw Damen, he said nothing of it. He didn't even inhale pointedly to check, as if he didn't care to find out what Damen had done either way. As if it didn't concern him. Or maybe he'd just already received reports from servants about how they'd had to attend to Damen in his illness afterwards, and already knew without having to smell for himself that Damen's scent would have shifted back to normal.

It didn't matter either way, Damen told himself. It made no difference whether Laurent cared now. Damen had made his choice. The only one he rationally could have made when there was likely more than one war to be fought in the near future.

Or so Damen had to remind himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilery warnings for those who've clicked through: This chapter contains use of the Akielon version of a morning-after pill in a case where pregnancy has been confirmed, which is what the implied abortion tag is referencing. I've tried to be somewhat delicate about it in the text, but it's still clear on the page that that's what's going down, so take care of yourself if that's an issue for you. The chapter also contains kind of dub-con in the sense that explicit consent wasn't obtained prior to the onset of heat, so ability to properly consent is kind of debatable. But both parties definitely do want it (even despite themselves).


	4. Spring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a time, there was supposed to be nothing more than vaguely implied pining from Nikandros. This chapter takes it significantly further than that, so I've included Damen/Nik in the pairings. Damen/Laurent is 100% endgame, never fear.
> 
> Also, this chapter contains elements of dub-con of both the 'would've consented if they could've' and the 'that would not have happened under other circumstances' variety. Hit me up if you need spoilers but like... everyone's ok, really.

"Have you received bad news?"

It was an indication of how well Nikandros knew Damen that he so easily picked up on what Damen was sure had only been a momentary furrow of his brow as he read the letter. And equally, it was a mark of the way Laurent had at least begun to win Nikandros over in those weeks when they'd been running Ios in Damen's stead that Nikandros didn't sound openly overjoyed at the prospect that this missive from Laurent had made Damen frown rather than break out into an overwhelming smile the way he had in response to the last two messages from Vere.

"It would seem that Laurent will not be returning to Ios this week as anticipated," Damen replied. "Some urgent business has come up on the border. He expects to be delayed for up to half a month."

"'Urgent business'," Nikandros repeated flatly. 

Damen understood Nikandros's disbelief and shared it himself. It wasn't that he doubted that there might be important things to be resolved in Vere; that had been the reason why Laurent had travelled north in the first place. The odds weren't very high, though, that Laurent wouldn't have provided Damen with more details of what was actually going on if he'd honestly thought it was something desperate enough to demand his immediate and personal attention _right now_.

There was no way that Laurent hadn't figured out why Damen had been so adamant that Laurent should return to Ios this week in particular. If he wasn't making every effort to be present for Damen's heat, then Damen could only assume that was on purpose. This 'urgent business' had to be just an excuse, and a transparent one at that. 

"It's fine," Damen lied when he registered Nikandros's look of concern. "Now you don't have to keep advising me to be cautious."

Nikandros had, in fact, pointed out more than once recently how things were likely still too fragile in Vere and Akielos to easily survive even more significant change. He hadn't specified that he meant change specifically in the form of the King suddenly becoming bonded and the alliance with Vere being inextricably solidified, but Damen had known what he meant regardless. The fact that Nikandros hadn't insisted that such a union could _never_ happen was surprising. That would definitely have been Nikandros's position either side of Damen's previous heat. But Damen supposed that Nikandros was nothing if not realistic. He couldn't have failed to miss how, as far as Damen was concerned, Laurent was already Damen's alpha in every respect other than officially. It was a foregone conclusion.

Or so Damen had thought right up until he'd found out that Laurent would be avoiding him during his heat, and pointedly leaving Damen to go through it alone.

Or to go through it with someone else. Was that what Laurent intended? Surely not. Damen could hardly imagine it, considering how well he remembered the possessive way Laurent had wound their bodies together in bed and drawn out his departure on the day he'd left Ios several weeks ago. And even if Laurent had intended to free Damen up to seek out someone else, Damen had no interest in any of the nearby omega nobles or villagers who would be pleased to share the King's heat with him, and even if there had instead been a single omega slave left in the palace these days, Damen wouldn't have voluntarily returned to the way he used to spend his heats either. During his last heat he'd preferred the idea of enduring it alone if he couldn't have what he really wanted, and he was even more disposed in that direction now. If it wasn't Laurent, it would be no one.

Even so, the four days between the arrival of the latter and the start of Damen's heat were filled with a vague kind of dread. The only time Damen had ever gone through a heat alone, after all, had been intended as a punishment, and it had absolutely felt like one. There would be no device restraining from helping himself this time, that was true, but Damen could only hope that that freedom would make any real difference. Without personal experience, he could hardly be sure of it. And there must have been a legitimate reason why it had become common practice for unclaimed omegas to see each other through heat rather than just dealing with it on their own, which would otherwise surely be simpler.

It only took Damen a few hours into his heat to figure out exactly the reason for that tradition. It hadn't been just the device he'd been locked into that had made his heat in Arles unbearable, it seemed.

The omegas who'd spent his heats with him in the past might not have been exactly what Damen's body had ultimately been craving, but they'd been sufficient to both fool Damen's body and distract him from the lure of what his instincts really wanted in a way that Damen pressing a stone cock inside himself apparently couldn't manage. Even when he quickly transitioned up to the objects with a flare closer to the base to mimic a knot, it made little difference. Without the press of limbs holding him down, or the body heat chasing away the chills provoked by the cool air hitting his own too-hot skin, Damen's body knew it was being deprived of something integral. It probably didn't help either that Damen now knew exactly what he'd been missing out on all along. Having had the real thing once, he wanted more of it. He _needed_ an alpha. And unlike the last time he'd been left without a partner to help him through heat, this time Damen wasn't chained down, unable to go looking for what he required.

Damen somehow managed to feel simultaneously like he was too-present in his skin and like his mind was in a haze as he stumbled for the door. It was a struggle to concentrate well enough to disengage the lock, but he somehow managed it, and ended up out in the hall. There was a buzz of voices, all frantically calling out his title. None of the men who spoke or who tried to block off the other end of the hall to keep him from leaving actually reached out to touch Damen in an effort to stop him. They wouldn't dare touch the King without permission. Damen was glad. They were all betas anyway. None of them had what he _really_ needed right then. He didn't want them to touch him if by doing so they were only keeping him from finding an alpha. 

"… tell him he needs to come here. Now," Damen heard someone say as he leaned against the wall to catch his breath for a moment, and to try to also catch a whiff of alpha so that he knew which direction to go. The hallway was devoid of it, of course; that was always part of the pre-heat preparations.

More than just a hint of alpha scent arrived soon enough, though. Damen's entire body vibrated the moment he smelled it. He lurched towards the source and was caught by strong arms.

Alpha. Damen bared his neck. He heard a choked inhale in response.

The alpha caught a handful of Damen's hair to stop him from pressing his lips to the alpha's skin uninvited. Of course; Damen should have waited for permission. The grip was used to tilt Damen's head so that he was looking directly into the alpha's eyes.

Into Nikandros's eyes. 

Some part of Damen's brain registered that; it reminded him 'wrong alpha' and 'not Laurent' rather insistently. The rest wasn't really in a position to care at this point. He _wanted_.

" _Exalted_." Nikandros's voice was strained almost to the point of breaking. The use of Damen's title was intended as a reminder to both of them, Damen distantly realised, of exactly why this couldn't happen. And yet Damen found his hands still wandering, seeking. Nikandros was hard, Damen could feel against the press of Damen's upper thigh insinuated between Nikandros's legs. He was obviously more than just a little interested in the scent of Damen's heat and the sight of his naked body on display. Damen's mouth watered. Nikandros caught both Damen's wrists, pulling his hands away from Nikandros's body. Damen let out a pleading moan to be allowed to continue to touch, and to be touched in return.

"Yes, I know. It's alright," Nikandros said softly, clearly trying to be soothing. "Just… come with me."

Damen would have preferred to be just fucked up against the wall, rather than be made to wait even longer, but he let Nikandros commandeer him, half-guiding and half-carrying Damen. Nikandros's hands were like twin brands where they gripped him as he navigated Damen back down the stretch of hallway to the same room from which Damen had emerged. A few tugs at Nikandros's chiton would soon remove the barrier from between them and allow Nikandros to press his entire hot body against Damen instead, Damen thought dreamily. He remembered what it had felt like to have an alpha curled around him like that last time. 

Last time. With Laurent.

Damen frowned. "Laurent," he muttered unhappily.

"Yes, I know that's who you really want," Nikandros said as he pressed Damen gently into the bed. Damen reached for him again, but Nikandros stepped backwards out of Damen's grasping range. "I also know that you would regret this forever because I'm not him. I won't allow that."

Nikandros disappeared out the door. There was a heavy thump out on the hallway, then another. When Damen finally managed to get his feet under him to go after the alpha, he couldn't get the door open a second time, even though it was unlocked. Damen suspected he must have pushed at the door ineffectually for at least a few minutes before he was able to process that there must be something heavy in front of the door that was stopping it from opening. He was trapped in the room.

Damen slumped against the wood, sliding down the surface of the door until he was half curled up against it and half on the ground. The noise that emerged from his throat must have sounded piteous to anyone close enough to overhear, but he couldn't bring himself to care that he sounded like an animal caught painfully in a trap when that was exactly how he felt. Especially when he could smell the fresh scent so close to him, just outside the door. The alpha hadn't left yet, it seemed. He was hesitating. Re-thinking.

"Please!" Damen begged, hoping it would make him change his mind.

He heard an additional thump and a frustrated sound, and then heavy footsteps quickly growing softer, like someone all but sprinting away. The scent grew abruptly fainter as well.

It was the second time an alpha had left Damen right after he'd begged for them, Damen realised miserably.

Damen didn't know how long he remained there, with his own fingers buried inside himself like that was even close to what he needed, because it just seemed like too much effort to crawl back to the bed where the more useful items were. It was too much of a blur of unfulfilled want to trace. Too long; that much he was sure of. 

Damen's mind and body did jerk back into something closer to awareness at some point. It took him a moment to recognise what had changed to grab his attention, and only a second after that to hear the scraping sounds of something heavy being dragged away just on the other side of the door. 

The rush of nearby alpha scent was overwhelming to Damen's worn nerves to the point of being uncomfortable, but he didn't care. How could he when this time he could recognise that it wasn't just any alpha. This was _his_ alpha approaching. Damen shoved himself towards that smell, trying to get at it no matter what. So he was leaning so heavily on the door that when it swung open he ended up sprawled on the ground.

"Fuck," Damen heard Laurent say as Damen grasped at Laurent's boot, weakly trying to drag himself up the length of his leg. Damen didn't know whether his reaction was to the concentrated heat scent or to the sight of Damen looking so pathetic and needy. Did it matter? Laurent was there, finally. Laurent would give Damen what he needed. That was what was important.

Laurent didn't bother trying to corral Damen into the room first the way Nikandros had seemed to be doing before he'd left Damen unsatisfied. Instead, Laurent simply rolled Damen over right there halfway out the door of his rooms and went to his knees between Damen's legs. Damen was only very distantly aware that his guards were being treated to quite the sight of their King's slicked hole and his hard cock resting against his stomach between his thighs as Laurent pushed Damen's legs upwards until his knees were resting against his shoulders. Laurent quickly blocked the guards' views, though, by lowering his head. The first swipe of Laurent's tongue over the pooling of slick was enough to white out Damen's vision and make his over-desperate cock pulse almost painfully. It was the last thing Damen really remembered of his heat, apart from nondescript flashes of Laurent's face.

Damen woke with his entire body aching like he hadn't so much as seen a soft surface in years, but actually he was lying in what should have been an eminently comfortable bed. It took Damen a moment to remember that his current position hadn't been a foregone conclusion, and it certainly hadn't been where he'd spent the whole duration of his heat. He remembered a lot more besides; he'd embarrassed both of them by trying to bed Nikandros, and he'd at the very least had Laurent's tongue inside him right in front of the guards. And Damen groaned at the realisation that Laurent had seen him literally crawling on the floor, so desperate to be fucked that he hadn't been able to care how he appeared or what he was doing. 

There was an answering groan behind him.

Unlike his last two heats, it seemed that this time Damen hadn't woken alone but for the guards outside the door.

Damen shifted towards the sound, flinching slightly when the movement made it clear that something large was still pressing inside him. Damen reached back and touched stone. He grunted as he withdrew one of the largest of his carved stone cocks. He wondered whether it had been him that had pick it out and pressed it into place, or whether Laurent's hand had been the one pumping it inside Damen instead. If it were humanly possible for Damen to get hard immediately after the end of his heat, the sudden vividness of that mental picture (or memory, possibly) would have been enough to ensure it.

Damen rolled the rest of the way over, almost knocking heads with Laurent, who had been sprawled behind him, and who was now blearily blinking awake himself. Laurent's eyes were one of the few facial features of which Damen had an unobstructed view, for there was what looked to be a long strap of leather wound several times over Laurent's mouth and around behind his head, almost like a muzzle. Damen hurriedly reached to free Laurent of it. The leather was a guard's belt, Damen recognised when he eased the end of it out of Laurent's mouth. Though it wouldn't be used as a belt ever again; Damen could see that the leather was ruined now, bearing deep imprints from where Laurent's teeth had sunk into it.

Instead of sinking into Damen's neck, Damen realised. Laurent had more than likely done that to himself, for Damen's protection. And similarly, Laurent was also fully dressed still, with even his cock still tucked away behind a tight barrier of pristinely-tied laces. No wonder it was a fake cock rather than Laurent's inside him. Laurent had been careful not to allow anything more to happen between them during heat this time.

Or perhaps neither of them had been able to get the laces undone. Damen couldn't be sure.

"Are you alright?" Laurent asked. Damen felt like he should have been the one asking that. Laurent's voice was a croak, and his fingers drifted up to massage at his jaw, which was probably in substantial pain from having spent hours (or even days) clenched into the leather.

"I've been better," Damen acknowledged candidly. "But I've also been worse."

"I was responsible for that too." Laurent probably thought Damen meant his heat in Arles. Damen would have corrected him, but he didn't think it would help things to admit that this had been worse than then. "I shouldn't have..." Damen almost thought that Laurent meant to apologise for initially leaving Damen alone (except for how Laurent never outright apologised for anything) until Laurent added, "I know you didn't really want this. You obviously took off the collar for a reason. I know what the collar means in Akielos. But I couldn't make myself stay away. I tried, but I couldn't."

"That's not…" Damen started. He didn't know how to respond to that in a way that didn't sound just as scattered as his thoughts currently felt.

Damen had employed the blacksmith at Marlas to take his collar off just two days after the end of his last heat. Damen would have personally preferred not to remove it. He'd only done so out of necessity. How could he not when Damen had caught the way the bannermen and soldiers of Delpha continuing to stare dubiously at the collar as long as it remained around Damen's neck? If even the men who were more or less willing to accept the alliance in general had difficulty accepting what the collar might represent, Damen had been under no illusions that anyone in the southern territories would acknowledge Damen's authority as long as he continued to wear it. The fallout of a Veretian alpha – and the future King of Vere at that – ostensibly having claimed Damen at that point would have been worse than anything Father had ever warned Damen about when he'd cautioned him to avoid bonding. 

And yet even knowing that it was essential, Damen's skin had felt uncomfortably exposed from the moment the blacksmith pulled the ring of metal from his neck. It still felt that way even months later. He'd _felt_ claimed, so it hadn't seemed right to go around visually declaring to any alpha in the vicinity that he wasn't. 

Apparently he'd also unintentionally declared that to Laurent as well. No wonder he'd thought he was supposed to stay away.

Laurent's face was disconcertingly blank, the way it rarely had been with Damen over the past few months. Damen hated seeing it like that. It was too much of a reminder of what he'd been like after the last heat, when he'd still been trying to protect himself and hurt Damen by insisting that there was nothing more between them than convenience and politics. Laurent continued, "I know that I actually just made things harder for you by acting as I did. I should have just stayed away entirely. But I did what I could to make sure you wouldn't need to regret anything about it, at least."

"I wouldn't have regretted anything we might have done even if you hadn't taken those precautions," Damen insisted.

Carefully, Laurent said, "But you… took care of things, last time. You didn't want that future. That was only a few months ago."

Laurent clearly hadn't wanted that either, back then, or he would have said something, or at least wouldn't have provided Nikandros with the easy access he needed to enable Damen to 'take care of things'.

"We were basically at war then," Damen reminded Laurent. "And we didn't seem to have any kind of workable future together then anyway. It's different now. It still might not exactly be the ideal timing, but… Well. You've been dropping hints about an empire. What did you think that would entail, if not us as a bonded pair?"

Laurent shook his head slightly. "I thought that in a few years, when things had settled down and the Akielons were accustomed enough to the new status quo that they might be more accepting of the idea of you having an alpha bonded to you, I could try to convince you then. Maybe."

"I don't need to be convinced. I asked you to come back in time for my heat for a reason. I wanted you here."

There was a long beat, then: "Oh."

Damen laughed, though it was more from the relief of realisation than actual humour.

Laurent scoffed. "You could have been clearer, you know."

Damen thought he had made it obvious enough when he'd bared his neck to Laurent any number of times while they were alone, or let Laurent press his nose contentedly against Damen's throat when they were just barely waking up together in the mornings, or when they intertwined their fingers while they were lying side-by-side and ended up with them rested them on top of Damen's belly (still flat for now, but maybe not always, despite what Damen would have assumed as fact only a year ago).

But then, Damen supposed that even though Laurent had equally participated in all of those things, Damen had still second-guessed his intentions when Laurent had announced that he wouldn't be there for Damen's heat all the same. So perhaps they had both been acting like insecure fools.

Damen didn't feel uncertain anymore though.

"I don't intend for it to take years, you know. I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to convince the people to trust me - to trust _us_ \- enough to accept it as soon as possible."

Laurent kissed him. Damen took that as a yes, even though he hadn't technically asked the question.

Though he would later, because apparently they should really try to be a little more explicit with their intentions in future if they wanted to save themselves some grief.


	5. Summer (à deux)

"I don't know why you're complaining," Damen said. "You were the one who suggested that we should actually participate together in this tournament in the first place."

"I did. But was it really necessary for you to take the chance to humiliate me in front of half the kingdom?" asked Laurent.

"It wasn't half the kingdom. And you've hardly been humiliated. You managed to disarm me before I pinned you."

"We were both disarmed at the same time. It hardly counts."

"Still, you avoided getting caught in one of my holds for nearly a whole minute after you'd lost your sword. Do you know how few men have ever managed that? I guarantee that most people, including the kyroi, are aware of that. They'll respect you for being in such rare company."

"Will they really. I still ended up pressed face down into the ground. What would you call that, if not humiliating?"

"A typical evening?"

Laurent narrowed his eyes. "Careful with that mouth of yours. You might recall that you're going to be entirely at my mercy soon enough."

It was probably supposed to sound like a warning. To Damen's ears, though, it was more like an entirely welcome promise. Mostly because the implicit threat was obviously an empty one. Damen knew he could trust Laurent not to use Damen's temporary helplessness of heat against him. Not now. Things would never be like that between them again.

So Damen only shook his head fondly. "Is that wounded alpha pride of yours really troubling you so much that you have to resort to idle threats?" 

"You know that it has nothing to do with me being an alpha, or you being an omega."

"It does, actually," Damen countered. "That was the whole point."

"I meant my reaction wasn't based on that. But yes, obviously I'm aware of your intentions; they weren't exactly subtle. You wanted to make sure that everyone watching knew that you were capable of overpowering me even though you're an omega and I'm an alpha. That they don't have to fear that I can just force you into submission."

"But even knowing that, you still wanted to win the fight."

Laurent rolled his eyes, which Damen took to mean 'obviously' and 'always'. 

"This little performance likely won't change anything anyway," Laurent pointed out.

Damen said, "It might go some distance towards further reassuring those people who are already leaning towards supporting the alliance, at least." 

"Those aren't the people who are going to be our biggest problem."

"But they do seem to be the majority of the population, from what the regional reports have been suggesting," countered Damen. "And it's possible that nothing we do is ever going to convince those others who are completely set against us to change their minds anyway. Are we really supposed to wait to act forever just because of a comparatively small number of people if we already have majority support?"

"You sound like you've practised this argument."

"If you count my discussions with Nikandros as 'practice', then yes. Daily."

Laurent's face flickered in a way that Damen had recently started to recognise. This again. "He's just being a good advisor," Damen said, even knowing that Laurent wouldn't accept the reassurance.

"Oh, I'm sure that's all it is." There was a pause, then Laurent added, "I can beat Nikandros in a wrestling match now, you know. And I'd bet I can win against him in a duel as well. Perhaps I should have faced off against him in the tournament instead of you."

That _would_ have been all about humiliation, regardless of who won.

Damen couldn't help but smile at Laurent's posturing, though. "It's completely unnecessary, but you're actually kind of adorable when you're being jealous like this."

Laurent's face went flushed. There had been a time when Damen had assumed that alphas wouldn't blush easily. But Laurent wasn't like other alphas, from what Damen had seen. He wasn't like anyone at all.

Damen was fairly certain that Laurent was mostly just trying to hide his reddened face when he ducked it towards Damen's neck, but Damen's mind immediately went in a different direction due to the sudden proximity of Laurent's mouth to his scent gland. He could feel from the puffs of air hitting his skin that Laurent's lips were hovering just an inch or two from that section of this throat, where a few days from now Damen might be wearing Laurent's bite mark for all to see until Laurent finally covered it up by collaring Damen permanently. Part of Damen wished that Laurent would suck a different kind of mark into his skin now, like an announcement of intent. Laurent didn't do so. Instead, he pressed just the lightest of kisses there, so soft that Damen thought he almost wouldn't have felt it at all if his neck weren't so sensitive. 

That small sign of affection somehow seemed like as much of a promise for the future as a bruise sucked into his skin would have, even if Damen would be the only one who would know of it.

"In all seriousness, though, you really don't need to worry about other alphas. Nikandros won't be the one seeing me through my heat," Damen reminded him. "He's not the one I'm going to bond with."

"I'm still not certain that you should be bonding with me either. Not this soon. We could always get a temporary leather collar for you just for your heat so that I can't –"

"No."

The next time Damen allowed a collar to be looped around his neck, it wouldn't be coming off again.

"Or I could –"

" _No_."

Months ago, Damen might have taken Laurent's seeming hesitance as a sign that he actually didn't want this. He knew better than that now, though, so he wouldn't put up with any of Laurent's attempts to try to look out for Damen at his own expense.

"It could be a mistake," Laurent said.

"It could," agreed Damen. "Or our good luck and our trust in our people could continue to hold out. I'd rather take that chance and deal with whatever consequences ensue than continue to wait indefinitely just on the chance that something _might_ go wrong."

"You have had remarkable success at running headlong into things and coming out victorious despite the odds," Laurent acknowledged. 

" _We_ have, you mean."

Laurent nodded. Damen hoped that was meant as an indication of acceptance of more than just Damen's actual words.

"We've probably been missed by now. We really should hurry up and get back to watching the remainder of the tournament," Damen suggested half-heartedly. "Considering the whole thing is being held in our honour."

"We could do that," said Laurent. "Or…"

Or. 

Damen didn't even have to hear Laurent's alternative suggestion to know that he preferred it. The tournament crowds could wait a little longer for the Kings to reemerge after their fight.

They could manage to explain away a few hours of absence, surely.

Maybe even as many as seven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you expect there to be heat sex smut in this epilogue? So did I. But it decided that it wanted to be just straight-up summery fluff instead, so that's just tough for us I guess. Sorry.


End file.
